Congress
Jordan Wood joins crowded Maine Senate race
HARPSWELL, Maine — Jordan Wood, a former Capitol Hill staffer, is the latest candidate to announce a run for the Democratic nomination in Maine’s Senate race after Graham Platner dropped out Wednesday evening.
Wood signaled his interest in running for the seat earlier this week as Democrats across the state scrambled to float their own names to replace Platner on the ballot. Now, he’s making it official.
“This has been a tough week for all of us in Maine who have demanded real change in Washington and in our lives,” he said in a statement on Thursday. “Our campaign will continue to build on the powerful populist movement Graham started, and I welcome every Mainer who believed in his vision to continue to build that better world.”
This is Wood’s second go at a Senate bid this cycle. Late last year, he ended his nascent Senate bid to run in the Democratic primary for the battleground House seat being vacated by Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine). He finished a close third in that contest.
Several of the announced candidates, including former public health official Nirav Shah and former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, are maneuvering to cement themselves as the standard-bearer of Platner’s progressive outsider mantle. That may prove a harder task for Wood, who faces an uphill battle to reintroduce himself to voters and distance himself from his time working in Washington.
He’s already trying to shed that D.C. connection: “I’ve got a message for Chuck Schumer and the DSCC: Maine doesn’t need Washington insiders picking our senator. That’s a decision for the people of Maine,” he said.
Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that the full, five-year surface transportation reauthorization bill will likely be a lame duck issue — and that he would push to wrap it up before the 119th Congress concludes.
When asked by Blue Light News when the House will hold a floor vote on the legislation, Johnson said, “We’re working on that” and pivoted to ding the Senate, saying the upper chamber “hasn’t made any movement towards it at all.”
But he added that the House is trying to work with the Senate and “hopefully it’s an exercise we get done in a lame duck.”
“I think that’s what everybody expects at this point, but we’ll have to see,” Johnson said.
“It is a big priority for us, there’s some great policy in there, and we’re gonna work aggressively to get it done” this year, he added.
The legislation, also known as the highway bill, authorizes funding for roads, bridges and transit. Both the House Transportation and Energy and Commerce committees in May approved their portions of the legislation. The current bill, the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, lapses Sept. 30.
The House is poised to clear a Senate-passed extension of the existing surface authorities later Tuesday, kicking the deadline from the end of September to Dec. 11. That gives Capitol Hill more time to attempt to pass a full reauthorization.
But lawmakers face numerous obstacles. The House Ways and Means Committee’s plans remain unclear. That panel has jurisdiction over the federal gas tax, which flows into the ailing Highway Trust Fund. The Senate, meanwhile, has yet to release text.
Passing the surface bill is a big priority for retiring House Transportation Chair Sam Graves (R-Mo.).
Asked Tuesday about the timing of a full House vote, Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told Blue Light News that it’s dependent on what the tax-writing committee ends up doing.
“It’s still a negotiation and before the Ways and Means Committee,” he said. “There’s one final step before it goes to the floor, that’s Ways and Means. As soon as that’s over, then we will talk to the chairman, talk to our members and bring it forward.”
Scalise said he would like to hold a House floor vote on the legislation before year’s end.
“But again, we have to get it through the committee process,” he said.
A Ways and Means spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, though Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said in July that his panel was discussing the bill “pretty much daily.”
House Republican leaders are pushing ahead with a vote on a stopgap funding bill Tuesday — even if the vote could mean freezing the House floor for the rest of the week.
Several House Republicans angry over how GOP leaders have handled the spending legislation are threatening to tank a subsequent vote on a procedural measure setting up debate on several additional bills. The funding bill is expected to get a vote first under special fast-track procedures, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said GOP leaders will “handle each vote as it happens.”
“We know [procedural votes] are always difficult with a small, small majority, and you look at attendance and all those things, but at the end of the day, the [continuing resolution], it’s the first vote,” Scalise told reporters Tuesday. “That’s really important to avoid a government shutdown, and then we’ll … take it from there.”
Many of the Republicans threatening a floor revolt are upset with a provision delaying a hemp products ban. That includes Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, a former Rules Committee chair, who said he plans to vote against the procedural measure that the panel advanced on Monday.
The Texas Republican is not typically one to defy leadership and said “if they took out the language on this hemp issue” he would support the rule.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, also said he plans to vote against the bill, as did Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who sent a letter to top Republicans arguing the continuing resolution would extend taxpayer dollars for abortion services. Other GOP hard-liners, such as Reps. Paul Gosar of Arizona, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Keith Self of Texas, were noncommittal on the key vote.
House GOP leaders appear to be watching the absences on both sides. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer said in an interview Tuesday “we’ll see” if the rule is adopted, pointing to the dozens of members who skipped votes Monday night.
Several Republicans are already speculating the House could head home early if the stopgap funding bill is passed and holdouts stymie the rest of the legislative agenda. So far, GOP leaders aren’t indicating a change of plans.
“We’re moving forward to continue working as long as we can keep getting the agenda moved,” Scalise said. “We have other things we want to do.”
Speaker Mike Johnson told a closed-door meeting of senior House Republicans on Monday night that he met with GOP megadonor Elon Musk in Austin last week, according to two people who were in the room, as House GOP leaders hope he’ll bolster their campaign efforts in key battlegrounds.
Blue Light News first reported the planned meeting between Johnson, Musk and some other Republicans last week. Republicans involved in the matter are hopeful Musk will start unleashing a portion of the $100 million-plus he reportedly plans to spend on the midterms to boost House Republicans through his super PAC, America PAC — likely in the form of field organizing support and other resources.
Johnson didn’t say in the Monday meeting whether Musk made any commitments during the meeting in Austin last Friday, which came as the speaker barnstormed Texas battleground races that will help determine House control next year. But Republicans in the room took it as a suggestion Musk could unleash spending on their behalf, according to the two people.
A spokesperson for America PAC did not respond to an inquiry. A spokesperson for Johnson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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